Stokes Nature Center – Logan Canyon

Stokes Nature Center is located near the entrance of Logan Canyon. It is a FREE nature center where children can explore and learn about the natural world.

You will need to park and then take a little hike over to the Nature Center. It is really flat and quite beautiful. The hike is about 1/3 mile along the River Trail. We had just as much fun walking next to the river and exploring the hiking area, as we did at the Stokes Nature Center. Near the center is a bridge that we walked back and forth across a few times.

The trail follows the river and is very flat and easy.

We had fun on the bridge!

We spotted birds, and even fish on our hike!

Logan Canyon is beautiful, which makes the hike to Stokes Nature Center very enjoyable.

Inside the nature center you will find two sections. One is dedicated to the preschool that they hold there. Inside are learning supplies, a puppet theater, books, blocks, and many other fun things. When we were there, they said we were allowed to use whatever we wanted as long as we cleaned up and put it back where we found it. Our boys had a fun time with the hands-on toys, and I enjoyed the alphabet made out of natural things (I forgot a picture, so you’ll have to go to the nature center to check it out).

This is the preschool side of the center.

Here are our boys putting on a puppet show!

This wall was fun! See how tall you are compared to these wild animals!

The other side of the nature center is filled with hands-on activities to teach children about nature, and especially the animals and plants in Utah. There are matching games, mystery guessing boxes, scat in bottles and touch boxes. We had so much fun testing our knowledge since we spend a lot of time in Utah’s great outdoors.

There were lots of fun bones to touch.

That is a HUGE pinecone! Our 9 year old was amazed.

These boxes have a mystery object, and you have to try and figure out what it is by touch.

These boxes were fun. One has scat in bottles and you got to guess which animal left it behind. The other box has tracks for you to match to animals.

There are also some live animals in the Stokes Nature Center. We had fun looking at the tarantula, lizards, snakes, and turtles.

This side of the nature center has some live animals.

We liked the turtles!

Outside are a few fun things to play on as well. Our boys loved the swing and we threw a few rocks into the river. There are benches and tires to sit in. If you would like, you could continue on the river trail further down. This trail is much like any river parkway that follows the river through Logan Canyon, but it is not paved.

Outside the Stokes Nature Center there are some places to sit and enjoy the outdoors. There is also a teepee!

The tire was the boys’ favorite spot, of course.

We had a lot of fun on the rope swing!

The location is beautiful! We love scenic spots such as this.

The Stokes Nature Center offers field trips, tours, and summer camps. If we lived closer, we would definitely look into sending our boys to these adventurous camps. For more info, visit their website.

Directions & Hours

Hours: Summer only! 10 am – 7 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Directions: About 1 mile into Logan Canyon from Logan along US Hwy 89 there is a parking on the north side of the highway next to a wooden Cache National Forest sign, or just east of this area along the south side of Hwy 89. There are a limited number of parking spots directly at the entrance to the River Trail, adjacent to the metal gate. Watch for that metal gate because that is where you’ll start your hike over to Stokes Nature Center.

We parked in the parking lot next to this sign on the north side of the road. You can see a few cars pulled over on the other side. The gate to begin the hike is just past the cars on the side of the road.